How do you maximize the business value of your technology? For a small business, the answer is often fairly clear, because its technology and business processes are both relatively confined in nature. Straightforward products and services suggest straightforward IT. As that business succeeds and grows, however, so will its underlying IT infrastructure. And so will its need for an adaptable approach to management. And in an enterprise that may employ thousands of people in
support of a wide range of products and services, the IT division is often required to manage
enormous operational and development complexity.
ITIL version 3: What It Means and How IBM Can Help
Coming to Grips with Enterprise IT How do you maximize the business value of your technology?
For a small business, the answer is often fairly clear, because its technology and business processes are both relatively confined in nature. Straightforward products and services suggest straightforward IT. As that business succeeds and grows, however, so will its underlying IT infrastructure. And so will its need for an adaptable approach to management. And in an enterprise that may employ thousands of people in support of a wide range of products and services, the IT division is often required to manage enormous operational and development complexity. Furthermore, the technological solutions and services The increasing complexity available to large businesses today are themselves far more comprehensive and feature-rich than ever before. and dependence on
Integrating them on an enterprise scale in the pursuit of information technology has improved service management-essentially aligning IT processes and resources with business goals to achieve made IT best practices
desired results for customers-is no simple undertaking. It become more and more requires significant expertise in many disciplines to provide the collaboration required to really add value to customers. important.
ITIL®: Best Practices for Best Results
Because of the increasing complexity and dependence on information technology, the concept of IT best practices has become more and more important. Various frameworks have been created to help today's IT professionals optimize their use of technology in managing IT processes. Of these, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library®) has become an increasingly accepted library of books on service management practices. Originally created by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) of the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, ITIL is a library of books that represent the collected insights of many industry leaders on the subject of how to organize and orchestrate a complex IT infrastructure to achieve best business results. The copyright on the library is owned by the UK Office of Government Commerce, and the library is a revenue generator for the UK Treasury. Over time, ITIL has undergone several revisions in order to incorporate new ideas and respond to new business circumstances. One important consideration is that ITIL is not intended to ITIL is a valuable set of be a formal standard. Since ITIL is not a standard, there is no such thing as a business process or vendor solution guides that serve as a very
which is ITIL compliant (or ITIL noncompliant). While the good starting point for any information presented in ITIL originates from many sources, including IBM, it may not always be applicable for a given service management
customer situation. IBM supports ITIL best practices and improvement effort. helps businesses evaluate and leverage ITIL, as well as other models, while maintaining a focus on real business objectives. "Best practices" itself is a bit of a misnomer, given that what is considered "best practice" changes over time. Other frameworks also provide sound guidance, such as COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology) and enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM). In some cases, frameworks other than ITIL may well be better suited to a given business's needs. In most cases, businesses are best served by considering all of the available models and frameworks, and then adopting and adapting the appropriate model based on their current business objectives. The Release of ITIL v3
This year, version three of ITIL has been released. It is a significant update designed to update the library to reflect leading practices as described by the 10 authors and the ITIL Advisory group of 23 industry experts. ITIL version 3 has a new focus on the service management lifecycle concept and highlights the importance of more accepted practices. One area that ITIL version 3 addresses is the erroneous belief that service management was made up of "10+1" practices described in a typical ITIL Foundation Class. How important is ITIL version 3? That depends on the enterprise. Specific business goals and challenges should be the primary considerations. Then consideration should be given to ITIL, as well as other frameworks, to determine the best approa... [download for more]
